Programming bugs typically occur for very precise reasons. Therefore, it is important for code samples to be precise, and to actually duplicate the behavior that is being seen. Your code sample will not compile because you didn't quote your file paths. Because of this mistake, we must be left to wonder what else, in your code example, fails to demonstrate the actual bug you are seeing. It's often difficult to decipher what mistake you're making if the code sample you provide isn't useful, or has errors unrelated to what you're asking about.

I can say that this works as intended:

$ touch foo     # Create a file.
$ rm -rf foobar # Assure that the foobar directory doesn't exist.
$ perl -MFile::Copy=move -E 'move("foo", "foobar/foo") or die $!'  # T
+est a move into a directory that doesn't exist.
# No such file or directory at -e line 1.
ls foo  # Assure the original file still exists.
# foo
[download]

The file still exists after the failed move.